Decisions, Decisions : A friendly, flirtatious and very funny comedy-gig with Nerine Skinner
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3 February
Decisions, Decisions : A friendly, flirtatious and very funny comedy-gig with Nerine Skinner
- or, maybe, was it ? -
Flirtatiously frank and very, very funny : Nerine Skinner at Aces and Eights, NW5
Decisions, Decisions, Nerine Skinner's new show / work in progress [metaphor for life, there ?], is a quickly paced, revelatory parade that no one need rain on. (Not that anyone tried, in what looked to be a fairly benign group of people on a Tuesday night, but perhaps everyone somehow simply knows when in the presence of someone who has faced, and can handle, far tougher situations than some would-be heckler ?)
At least on this occasion, since a principal point of Decisions, Decisions is that much is undetermined or open to change (although some planning had necessarily been behind being able to give us, in its own person, a neglected bottle of Port's perspective on us and our fickle, seasonal tastes), she opened it with a song about, er, decisiveness, and, when it came to closing, it was with something that we had helped co-create.
(As those can attest who had already seen her perform a classic Streisand number – aptly re-purposed for topicality –Skinner sings (and dances) both confidently and very well (as well as, yes, being keenly attuned to comically delivering neatly thought-through lyrics). And we were to hear a little about why.)
And in between... ? For brides, apparently, something old, something new, and so on, are required, and, in our corsages, we were given, as well as a reprise of #LizzyBoots (who had haunted her Edinburgh shows in 2024), fresh characters, either embodied or aptly summed up (and always with a winsome smile), who also like to pin their self-interest on their lapels, but nonetheless expect the fragrance of their pendant bloom to entice us.
If, as it should, that wording sounds not a little fruity, Skinner makes her show and what she tells us about herself flirtatiously blue [a slipped-in line about 'his cream-filled horn' stands, as it were, out !] and can effortlessly borrow our attention and sense of intrigue. Yet all in a blend of knowingly energetic flirtatiousness that strongly speaks simultaneously of empowerment and vulnerability, and of being well aware of, if lured by, the ways of the world.
Stories told, to strong humorous effect, from (or not implausibly from ?) her own experience, in which, if one wanted to pick out a linking theme or motif, one might be the things that one sometimes has to do to in life just to get, or try out for, a gig (or even in order to get by so that one has a chance to do so) – another might be those mismatches between what those in prominent positions in life do and what they would nonetheless have us believe that they value.
Thanks so much to everyone who came along to my show in London the other day! I really appreciate all of you! 🙌💕
— Nerine Skinner (@nerineskinner) February 5, 2026
Next stop Leicester a week today! 12th Feb! Who’s coming? Please spread the word! ❤️
Link to book: https://t.co/lpk4eHJ7Z2 pic.twitter.com/3NWpwKqBzV
Go see for yourself anyway – remembering that the thing about live is that you never get quite the same show twice, but that your love, applause and presence are truly part of it, and they make it whatever it will be !
End-notes :
* And, in fact, the alternative possibility for opener was also given for our appreciation and appraisal. (In the spirit of co-production, we had been asked and had wanted to see it.)
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
